Do I need ICD7 or ICD24?

Quick question, I'd like to put new thermal paste on my CPU, northbridge, and GPU. Thought I'd go with ICD because of the good reviews on this site. People say to be generous with how much you put on, so I was wondering if the 1.5 grams in the 7 carat was enough for what I want to do. Thanks.

 

I recommend ICD24 you will use about 75% of it for what you are doing.

 

Depend on the price compare between 2, if ICD7 is not excessively more expensive g/$, get the small one. Some may find ICD a total PITA to work with.

Most popular paste have similar performance so no need to stick with 1.

 

I'd also suggest you get Arctic MX-4 - see some reviews online, it's the same or better than ICD7 and easier to work with.

Volume wise, the 4 gram MX-4 was enough for 4 applications (two of which required like twice the normal amount in my case), with some paste left.

Id' say the 1.5g ICD 7 should be enough for two applications (second if you screw up somehow) CPU, GPU and NB.

 

2011 Thermal Compound Roundup – Results Compilation | Skinnee Labs

I bought me some PK-1 and HeGrease.

So far, having only used HeGrease, and only on a different laptop and having redone my PC and GPU in my PC, I can say that I, as in ME, noticed a 20~F (not C... F)... drop in temp on my CPU, and 30~F on my GPU... both had AS5 prior... I expected maybe 5F... and even then I was giving it the benefit of the doubt.


As for the article, I dont know if its all that legit (paying company or what), what I do know however, is that I did notice that AS5 vs the HeGrease, AS5 got PWNT (gamer shining through)... FOR MEEE... on my custom desktop and dell d810 modified laptop...



Disclaimer: not paid, not member, not employee of the site or paste company, and have not used ICD at all... YMMV... and if your going to redo your GPU, I highly recommend the p-79 revision of the heatsink/fan (its combined)... the gap for VRAM is smaller...

EDIT: could swear I saw something about ICD in the roundup when I read it, turns out, I was right, there was! so here it is: ""IC Diamond will only be tested after this testbed is ‘retired.’ Due to its severe polishing effect, ICD is not something I can test 15 mounts of and guarantee that the testbed will perform the same after as it did before (it permanently alters the CPU IHS and the block bases). That said, I did briefly test it while pre-testing for this testbed and procedure and I can say it’s really good with Poor Contact but does not improve much as contact improves, making it just an ‘okay’ paste when you have at least moderate contact, which most CPU blocks, most GPU blocks, and most heatsinks do. In the old testing, the Apogee GTZ used makes good contact and ICD just can’t keep up with Shin-Etsu X23-7783D (and wouldn’t keep up with Prolimatech PK-1)."" eww... severe polishing effect... comments anyone?

 

For the northbridge, I just bought a cheap thermal pad from ebay.

 

I tried Arctic Silver 5 and ICD 7 (after reading so many eulogies from this forum) and finally chose AS5 because it ran cooler. AS5 was also easier to apply.

 

What are your temps?

Idle with HeGrease and 17k thermal pads (where needed), is 90F-100F depending on room temp, and sadly, since im using .23 BIOS for Sleep BSOD fix, my GPU runs 110F-140F idle (plugged in, it runs cooler when not).

I havent seen my CPU get over 130F when under full load, or the NB chipset
As for GPU, since the .23 BIOS the GPU fan does not turn on AT ALL until it hits 172F, I couldn't give an accurate load temp since the temp level's are fubared! (also of note is that I am using the next revision fan heatsink for the GPU, this has an extra extension which cools 3 extra PWM modules which generate stupid amounts of heat when plugged in)...


Either way, I am LOVING this HeGrease...

 

I can confirm that ICD7 is plenty for the NB, CPU, GPU and memory chips surrounding it.